Letters 12-16-08

A quarter million here, a quarter millon there.... pretty soon we'll have some real money.

So San Bernardino Associated Governments will spend $250,000 to study a two/three lane addition to the I-15 through Cajon Pass. Great, and Nero fiddles while "Victor Valley" burns.

What they will find is that it will be an enormous task to put three lanes anywhere without giant sums of money and earthmoving; we're talking billions. And for those who drive Amargosa or Mariposa, you know that three more lanes on the I-15 right of way through Hesperia/Victorville is just about impossible ... unless it is elevated.

The common sense approach continues to be a four-lane divided parkway out of the Victor Valley for commuter traffic that would leave Hesperia through the Summit Valley, tieing into the current but under-used Route 66 Highway at Cajon Junction. This four-lane divided roadway can be inexpensively brought back to its former self, and since they are re-engineering/designing the I-15/I-215 interchange at Devore anyway, the cost of designing a new continuance for Route 66 in Devore would be a piece of cake.

Many of these things are happening beyond SANBAG's latest offering to Daily Press readers (Dec. 14). Why can't local elected officials seize on the obvious and make common sense decisions that will get our Valley motorists in and out of Cajon Pass efficiently, and far sooner then 2025?

Tom PinardWrightwood

The wages of cheating

"Rampant cheating in schools" (Daily Press, Dec. 14) took me back to my high school days in the early '50s.

A classmate whom I'll call Richard Rich was a chronic cheat. He copied and plagiarized shamelessly. He even copied our math homework by pretending to "compare" our solutions with his.

Some cheaters are actually bright kids, but lazy. Richard, however, couldn't tell you the difference between an isosceles triangle and a bar of soap. We all knew he was hollow. We bided our time.

His mother was the truculent head of the Parent-Teachers Association, and had the teachers and staff so thoroughly cowed that none dared expose him. Instead, they just gave him A's

Richard became senior class president and prom king. During his valedictory speech he told us with a straight face that his inspiration was Ralph Bunche, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950.

Our state university awarded him a scholarship that included tuition and books plus room and board. Teachers and staff sent him off to college with fanfare missing only heraldic trumpets.

During his first semester in college, Richard flunked all his midterms, dropped out, took a job in a department store and was never heard from again.

Virgil JoseApple Valley

The unions built them

I am very concerned that we jump on the rich union worker who has negotiated an earning wage of $80 per hour while producing a product we purchase, usually happily satisfied, and not complain about sports figures who are paid 10 times that amount for our enjoyment, for which we really have to make a large wage to be able to take our family to a game (three hours' entertainment) for $300-plus.

The union bridge-builder has helped to install the freeway bridges we drive over every day for about $58 per hour at high risk to life and limb.